A House Like No Other
“We're here. This is our house. Man, it's hot!”
Seo Rin pressed his fingerprint to the electronic door and stepped inside. The interior was always held at a carefully regulated temperature by the air conditioner for the sake of Se-gun's server computers, so to people who had been suffering through the heat wave, it truly felt like heaven.
“Whoa.”
“Don't mess around—hurry up and put your motorcycle in the garage!”
Se-gun scolded Seo Rin as he wheeled the bike into the garage himself. The moment he entered the house he pulled on the ballistic stab-proof vest hanging by the entrance and sat down at the table. Always ready for combat, even at home. Hyuk-jin could only stick out his tongue at the man.
Se-gun settled in front of the computer and began hammering at the keys. No doubt he was reviewing the information they had gathered along the way.
“Anyway, Seo Rin, clear a space in your room and room with that guy. You've got enough room, right? Blankets shouldn't be a problem either.”
When Se-gun said that, Seo Rin nodded eagerly. Whatever else was going on, having a friend come live with him made him happy. Watching him beam so pureheartedly left Se-gun speechless. What kind of idiot could look this cheerful in a situation like this?
“Yes. Ah, Hyuk-jin, I'll give you the house tour.”
“What, is the house so special it needs a guided tour?”
Se-gun shot back, but Seo Rin only laughed and crooked a finger.
“No house is as special as this one, I promise.”
The sheer functionality of Se-gun's home put ordinary households to shame. Still, giving a guided tour to someone whose loyalties were not yet clear…
“Do whatever you want. Oh, and for the record—don't touch the server computers. Touch them and I'll skin the both of you and turn you into rugs.”
Se-gun decided to let Seo Rin do as he pleased and buried himself in his work again.
Seo Rin and Hyuk-jin stepped back outside for the moment. Seo Rin led Hyuk-jin to the laundry drying shed in the backyard.
“This is where the washer and the drying rack are together. Just dump your clothes in the basket, come out here, add detergent, and run the wash. That's it. Simple, right? Then hang them up to dry right after.”
“Yeah. More importantly, that guy is seriously dangerous. Is he… by any chance the Han Se-gun?”
Hyuk-jin asked carefully. Seo Rin nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah. That's him.”
“……Report him and we'd be rich.”
Hyuk-jin said it with complete sincerity. Honestly, with a bounty of fifty billion won, it would almost be worth trying. Of course he already knew it would be useless. Bounties only paid out once the criminal was caught, and there was no way Se-gun would ever be caught by the police.
Someone who possessed abilities far beyond human common sense was never going to fall into a police force and legal net optimized for catching the vast majority of ordinary criminals. People said Heaven's net was vast and coarse yet nothing slipped through it—but the police net, it seemed, fell short of the heavens.
Afraid Hyuk-jin might get any clever ideas, Seo Rin immediately laid down the law.
“But you're a wanted man yourself. Besides, I heard the bounty dropped a lot after Flex Medical pulled out. The escrowed reward money already expired and got released, from what I know. It's probably only about five hundred million now.”
Even so, five hundred million in public funds was still an impressive sum to put on someone's head.
“Is that so? Hmm. Impressive. Anyway, Seo Rin—how did you end up knowing a guy like that? And they said you were a lycanthrope too. Is that true?”
Hyuk-jin fixed Seo Rin with a probing stare. It was a question that hardly needed asking. One look at how little surprise they had shown when he revealed his own identity made the answer obvious. Still, Seo Rin looked flustered.
“Uuh… I wasn't trying to lie. I just wanted to keep it hidden.”
“N-no, I'm not trying to start a fight about it now. But… I took a pretty hard shock, you know. Losing to you every single time really wrecked my confidence.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Hyuk-jin was surprised at himself. Once upon a time he would have rather split his lips than say something like that, yet now it came out naturally. To think he could admit so easily that he had a complex about Seo Rin…
But Seo Rin just laughed it off.
“Hahaha. Sorry about that. But hey, you're a lycanthrope now too, so you won't go down so easily anymore.”
“Don't laugh!”
Hyuk-jin roared. He simply could not forgive the empty-headed way Seo Rin was grinning right in front of him. Was this really something you just laughed off? Granted, the guy had always had that kind of personality, but even so—wasn't this going too far? Hyuk-jin spat the words out like bile.
“I didn't become a lycanthrope because I wanted to! How can you stand in front of someone who just stopped being human and say something like that so easily? I don't even know when or how I might transform. And it's not like I'm a wolf—I'm a rat! A rat! Do you have any idea how disgusting that is? Being a wolf would be way better! A rat… it's horrific!”
At that, Seo Rin wiped the sweat trickling down his face and looked at him with genuine pity. After all, Seo Rin had been born a lycanthrope, but Hyuk-jin had been human until vampires attacked him and turned him. Their situations were completely different.
And when you traced the cause, wasn't it because he was friends with Seo Rin? Seo Rin laid a hand on Hyuk-jin's shoulder.
“……Of course I know. I was born a lycanthrope. But I'm sorry. It must be a complicated feeling. I just got happy that I finally had someone I could tell everything to, and I… I was being stupid.”
Seo Rin's strength had always been how well he handled other people's feelings. His voice was just right, too. Even when someone was about to explode, he somehow managed not to poke the sore spot and instead let the temper cool. That strength was on full display now; even Hyuk-jin, who had been ready to take a swing at him, found his anger settling as he listened.
“No. I was just pissed off and taking it out on you. When you think about it, you're a lycanthrope too. But still—it's irritating as hell. Damn it, there's no way to fix this, is there?”
“Probably not.”
Seo Rin wiped more sweat as he answered. Being inside the laundry drying shed made it unbearably hot. There were vents for airflow, but they were nowhere near enough. Built like a vinyl greenhouse, the interior was practically a furnace.
“We just took a bath and now we're sweating it all out again. Let's get out of here.”
“Yeah. No wonder it felt so damn hot.”
Hyuk-jin groaned, sweat pouring off him. They walked a circuit through the pine grove near the house while Seo Rin filled him in on the house rules.
“There are traps all around this area, so when you move, stick to the roads. If you just try to cut over the mountain… you die.”
“Do you mean actually die, or just suffer a lot in the ordinary sense?”
“The former is extremely likely. And for some reason Se-gun hyung seems especially pissed at you.”
Saying that, Seo Rin burst out of the pine grove and returned to the backyard. Hyuk-jin stared at him in disbelief.
“You're saying he'd kill me just for going somewhere else? Does that even make sense?”
“There are ferns growing in the pine grove, so people come in to pick them—looks like he keeps the landmines disarmed for that. But if the cameras decide whatever's walking around isn't human, he'll set them off immediately.”
“Landmines?”
A sheet of ice seemed to slide down Hyuk-jin's spine. If something like that was buried out there, even he would have no way of dealing with it. The thought of using his rats to locate the mines crossed his mind, but he quickly shook his head.
In places like the DMZ, deer and roe deer died all the time stepping on mines; animals had no special defense against them. Rats might be light enough not to set them off if they walked across the top… but rats digging tunnels to collect landmines? Absolutely impossible. Maybe in twenty or thirty years, but he had no reason to wait that long.
“Ah, for real…”
Hyuk-jin clicked his tongue, feeling the future go pitch-black. Giovanni had casually, without any support whatsoever, turned Hyuk-jin into a lycanthrope and shoved him into the enemy camp. He had thrown him into hostile territory completely alone, without even giving him a means of communication.
And then what was he supposed to do? Stick a spy in without telling him how to report back and call the job done? Did those bastards think everything was just fine like that?
Hyuk-jin and Seo Rin went back inside the house. The air conditioner was still running, making the interior blissfully comfortable. Leaving it on like this must run up a serious electric bill; Se-gun clearly had money to spare.
“Anyway… from now on I have to live as a monster instead of a human… and a rat at that. I'm completely fucked. You got any advice or anything?”
“Hmm. For starters, you might lose your reason during the full moon. Be careful of that. I was born a lycanthrope so I'm fine, but other lycanthropes who got infected as humans can hurt people without even realizing it.”
Seo Rin said that as he headed for the room.
“……R-really? That's dangerous as hell, isn't it?”
It was dangerous beyond measure. Hurting people unconsciously… he might not care whether the victims lived or died, but not being able to control his own body was truly terrifying. If he lost his mind like that, he could end up shot dead by the police or someone like them, couldn't he?
Seo Rin seemed to take Hyuk-jin's worry in a different sense; he nodded and patted him on the shoulder.
“Yeah, it's dangerous. But there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to be ready for it and stay careful. Don't worry. With me and Se-gun hyung around, we can make sure nothing like that happens.”
“If I have a fit and attack you or that Han Se-gun…”
“Then… you'd definitely die.”
Seo Rin said it with a smile, completely certain.
“Huh?”
Hyuk-jin's eyes went wide with sheer disbelief. For someone with Seo Rin's personality to cut off a dangerous statement like that so cleanly was unthinkable.
“Se-gun hyung is, honestly… a dangerous person.”
“You don't even need the 'honestly'—he looks dangerous at a single glance!”
In a crowded family restaurant he had casually unleashed an attack that would have killed an ordinary person, then casually remarked that “rats don't vomit”… Did that even make sense? If a man like that wasn't dangerous, who was? But Seo Rin looked at Hyuk-jin as if mildly surprised, thought for a second, then asked back,
“So he really does, huh?”
“Anyway, so if I have a fit he's just going to kill me?”
“Probably. If it's Se-gun hyung, he'd do it and still have room to spare.”
Saying that, Seo Rin opened the door to the room. Looking at how neatly and carefully it had been furnished, Hyuk-jin asked in surprise,
“Where does the money for all this come from? Furniture, computers, appliances—it looks like it costs a fortune.”
“We make money by squeezing blood out of vampires.”
“What?”
Vampires—like that Giovanni bastard? They made a living squeezing blood out of those kinds of things? Hyuk-jin could not help being stunned.
These people were completely insane, weren't they? Hunters who caught crazy vampires to make money, and Giovanni, who had sent a spy as a check against those hunters… two lunatics scheming for each other's lives. And the spy stuck right in the middle of it was him.
He had accepted Giovanni's job partly because of the threats, but also because he had always wanted a proper rematch with Seo Rin someday. Now the story was completely different. The existence standing behind Seo Rin—that Han Se-gun—was simply too big.
“……From my position, I can't exactly laugh and enjoy this.”
When Hyuk-jin muttered that, Seo Rin, who had been focused on the tour, looked back.
“Hm? What did you say?”
“Nothing. Never mind. I've just got a lot on my mind. So Han Se-gun is one of those… vampire hunters, right?”
Of course Seo Rin had heard him. But “from my position” probably meant the position of someone who had just become a lycanthrope. He must have been lost in some weird daydream and muttered to himself. Thinking that, Seo Rin gave a short laugh.
“Se-gun hyung? You could call him a nearly invincible vampire hunter. Among humans… he's top-tier, right up there with a priest named Silvester.”
Seo Rin mentioned the name Silvester. He had only heard the name himself, but before Se-gun the man had been the only Jinma hunter—an excommunicated priest who hunted vampires. Seo Rin did not know much more than that, so he vaguely assumed the man was roughly on Se-gun's level.
The thought that there was another human as foul-tempered as Se-gun somewhere out there sent a chill down the spine. Then Hyuk-jin muttered,
“Amazing. Being able to hunt vampires… is he even human? Can a human do that? No—thinking about that strength, he can't be human. Is he a lycanthrope too?”
“Half human, half vampire.”
Seo Rin said it like a soy-milk commercial jingle. It was probably the most accurate description of Se-gun's nature, but to someone who did not know the context it was gibberish.
“I don't get it. Is that even possible? Was he born between a human and a vampire, or did a pregnant woman get bitten by one or something?”
“That's Wesley Snipes.”
Walking around and showing the house did not take long. It was not a castle or a mansion, after all. Once the tour was finished, Se-gun came looking for them a short while later.
“Come down to the basement. First we pull out the smashed listening device.”
Se-gun was already wearing latex surgical gloves, prepared. Judging by the fact that he had brought the gloves already, he did not seem particularly concerned about disinfection or sterilization. Hyuk-jin recoiled in shock.
“What? How?”
“Surgical procedure, of course. If you had better control over your own body, you could use your regeneration to push the foreign object out through the skin… but since you can't do that yet, we have no choice but to force it.”
Seo Rin stared at Se-gun in surprise.
“Hyung, you can do surgery too?”
But Se-gun answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“No need to stitch anything up, so what's the worry?”
“W-wait a second!”
“Relax. I'll use a regular scalpel, not a silver one. Without silver there's less degradation and loss of regenerative power, so don't worry. Making a scalpel out of silver would be impossible in the first place. And even if it were silver, a lycanthrope wouldn't die from something that small.”